Rogers Announces First LTE Technical Trial in Canada

The Rogers network contacted us yesterday about their ambitions to begin the first LTE technical trial in Canada, which will take place in Ottawa. Why Ottawa? That’s because Rogers is teaming up with Ericsson Canada at their R&D facilities. We’ve had some discussion about LTE before. Here’s some info from the Rogers Redboard:

What is LTE?

LTE is a fourth generation (4G) wireless technology that will enable lightning-fast HD video streaming, gaming, communications, transactions and other connected experiences through mobile Internet. LTE allows significantly more data to pass through a network at higher speeds of up to 150 Mbps and it will become the foundation in a world defined by connected experiences.

What’s happening in Ottawa?

Ericsson, in co-operation with Rogers, has been conducting LTE lab testing comparing speeds and performance of LTE technology in multiple frequency bands. Rogers will expand on this testing and move to a comprehensive technical trial of LTE on both low and high band frequencies across the Ottawa area.

The technical trial will initially use recently auctioned AWS spectrum. Rogers is also working with Industry Canada to secure a development license to use 700 MHz spectrum for the trial.

What does this technical trial mean for Rogers customers?

Rogers was the first carrier to roll out HSPA+ in North America about a year ago, giving customers the ability to get speeds of up to 21 Mbps via a new Rocket Stick. We’re proud of our HSPA+ network, and when the market is ready for commercial deployment of LTE, we’ll be there.

This is great news for Canadians as Rogers is planning for faster networks for the future. While this is great, I have received many tweets from people living in towns and cities that don’t have 3G. Moreover, it seems that the existing 3G network is either meeting capacity or having issues. 3G speeds in Vancouver have been horrendously slow over the past week or so. Calls to customer service by iPhone 4 users have been told nothing is wrong, and it’s the device that could be causing the issue.

Do you have Rogers/Fido 3G in your area? How has your 3G connection been lately?

Bell/Telus iPhone 4 users, how are your 3G speeds??

[Rogers Redboard]

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